Memory Alpha:Category suggestions
---- In-universe categories Brain A subcat to Category:Anatomy with all the anatomical parts of the brain as well as things like neurotransmitters etc. There is a list on the brain page to start this category. :I like the idea, but is that the best name for it? How about "Nervous system"? --LauraCC (talk) 15:56, December 16, 2016 (UTC) ::"Brain anatomy" seems like the obvious term for what you seem to want to be doing. I too think that "brain" is a bit too vague: it seems like the proposed category would be intended for brain components, but if it's just called "brain" people might not get that and put things like "lobotomy", "cranial implant" or "aneurysm" in it. Otherwise, Support. -- Capricorn (talk) 08:17, December 18, 2016 (UTC) :I suppose if there are enough that fall into such a category, we could add "neurological conditions" as well. --LauraCC (talk) 18:29, December 22, 2016 (UTC) :And a neurotransmitter isn't anatomy, it's a chemical. So that wouldn't go in a "brain anatomy" category. --LauraCC (talk) 20:52, April 10, 2017 (UTC) Subspace communication To replace Template:Subspace, unless it could be edited into "technology" and "types of communications" sections. --LauraCC (talk) 19:39, February 1, 2017 (UTC) category=Subspace category=communications technology --LauraCC (talk) 19:46, February 1, 2017 (UTC) I've left off sortkeying some of the ones in category "subspace" that I recognize as communication related until the category idea is rejected or accepted. --LauraCC (talk) 17:19, February 2, 2017 (UTC) :I'm not exactly clear on why it needs replaced, unless we're on a mission to eliminate all of these navigational-type templates. I wouldn't be opposed to a category of "Subspace communications" for these articles as a sub-cat of "Communications technology", but I don't really know that it's necessary. I'd like to hear some other opinions. -- Renegade54 (talk) 20:40, February 16, 2017 (UTC) Those that are more like a diagram/table and less like a long list, such as Template:Enterprise conn officers are fine. My problem with the subspace communications one is that it's not organized like that. It's just an alphabetical list. --LauraCC (talk) 20:46, February 16, 2017 (UTC) :That's exactly what it is, an alphabetical list linking articles in two distinct categories: "Subspace" and "Communications technology". It *has* grown longer over time from when it was first implemented, though, so it *may* be time to retire it in favor of another approach. Anyone else? -- Renegade54 (talk) 22:14, February 16, 2017 (UTC) ::Support. - 12:35, February 19, 2017 (UTC) Biochemical compounds category=Biology category=Chemical compounds category=Biology category=poisonous substances category=Physiology category=Chemical compounds For those "Chemical compounds" secreted naturally by biological lifeforms rather than produced. Subcat of "Chemical compounds". Also, there's probably enough enzymes/enzyme-related pages to have an "enzymes" category. --LauraCC (talk) 17:43, February 9, 2017 (UTC) That is, there probably will be when all those red links at "enzyme" are made into pages. --LauraCC (talk) 20:08, February 16, 2017 (UTC) :This one probably isn't a bad idea. And some of these may be miscategorized to begin with; I'm not sure, from a biochemical standpoint, what the difference is between categorizing one under "Biology" and another under "Physiology". And the ones under "Poisonous substances" are still chemical compounds, so they should also be under the "Chemical compounds" category as well, if they're not already. -- Renegade54 (talk) 22:18, February 16, 2017 (UTC) ::Support if all of these can be categorized under physiology; if not, oppose, as this would be a better off as a nav template then. - 12:35, February 19, 2017 (UTC) What about "enzymes"? --LauraCC (talk) 21:12, February 23, 2017 (UTC) Aside from herbicide, I don't see anything which wouldn't fall under physiology. --LauraCC (talk) 20:00, February 28, 2017 (UTC) It appears to be the only substance which is not naturally produced by an organism. --LauraCC (talk) 20:54, April 10, 2017 (UTC) Law enforcement personnel Category:Law enforcement personnel: We have a category for military personnel, but none for law enforcement personnel, of which, there are many, namely beginning with those listed at United States law enforcement personnel. --Alan del Beccio (talk) 03:19, April 15, 2017 (UTC) :Oppose for the same reasons as last time. This includes Starfleet personnel in the operations division, but not all of them, so categorization becomes problematic at best, especially since you could also argue all Starfleet/military personal are/can also be law enforcement. - 04:01, April 15, 2017 (UTC) Well there certainly must be a better alternative than the one you offer, because the fellows listed are certainly not Starfleet, nor military, nor civilians, yet are clearly in their own self contained grouping that should be collected under one category. --Alan del Beccio (talk) 01:13, April 17, 2017 (UTC) ::If the category's raison d'etre can be clearly indicated that this is non-Starfleet personnel, then I have no real issue with it. The other possibility is to potentially include Starfleet "police" (if there have been any identified, which I'm not sure that there have been...) -- sulfur (talk) 01:44, April 17, 2017 (UTC) :There are a handful of Starfleet/post 21st century "police", or uppercase "S" Security, named, and anyone in lowercase "s" security can reasonably be considered to be in law enforcement too. I'm not too concerned about a bunch of unnamed operations division pages, but pages like United States armed forces personnel, or JAGs. Deciding if the "military" is in law enforcement as whole would also help, since Kirk wasn't harassing Harry Mudd because he was bored, and all we ever see the Nazi SS do is kill people without names while arresting our heroes. IDing who should be in this category (like Worf), and who should not be (like Alexander because of the Ancient West program), and if we should just have subcategories under this, would go a long way to convincing me this won't just lead to years of arguing over having Nazis and Odo in the same category, or if Archer is a better cop than Commander since he pretty much did her job for her. :The issue I'm getting at is "law enforcement" is much bigger than just "US law enforcement", but making a category for the latter only begs why it isn't in a category for the former, and it gets a pretty messy there. - 13:28, April 17, 2017 (UTC) :::You could call it "police personnel", signifying members of a police force. Or "civilian law enforcement personnel" to remove the military aspect. --LauraCC (talk) 15:48, April 17, 2017 (UTC) Eating establishments There sure are an awful lot of restaurants and bars in the DS9 establishments and Earth establishments categories. --LauraCC (talk) 20:05, May 5, 2017 (UTC) :Support the idea but Oppose about the name. Any better category name? Tom (talk) 12:01, May 7, 2017 (UTC) My first instinct is "Restaurants"...but what about the jumja stick kiosk? --LauraCC (talk) 16:36, May 9, 2017 (UTC) ::If you add hotels then that's , I suppose. Can't imagine the people in Star Trek ever using that term though. -- Capricorn (talk) 07:50, May 10, 2017 (UTC) :::An "eatery" is any "informal" place to eat, while a "dining establishment" is any place you can eat dinner, and generally implies a "fine" in front of it when compared to the low end of what eatery covers. Since this category is clearly not going to replace the above mentioned categories, and one can only assume it would be in the establishments category, I don't think we need to overthink this and create multiple categories based on the minutia of the many, many terms used for "place where you can buy ready to eat things for your food hole" in the English language. While I'm pretty opposed to the "eating" option, any of the other ones would be fine whenever someone gets around to doing the actual work for the suggester. - 08:12, May 10, 2017 (UTC) Containers For items in Category:Memory Alpha images (containers), like cup, pouch, vat, vial, bottle, etc. --LauraCC (talk) 20:25, May 11, 2017 (UTC) :Oppose, rationale for image category doesn't apply. - 10:32, May 12, 2017 (UTC) Literature breakdown Category:Literature has nearly an equal portion of literary "works" and "elements". I think the elements should remain here and the works be re-designated as "literary works".--Alan del Beccio (talk) 00:49, May 12, 2017 (UTC) :I would rather have a "literary elements" category than moving the works to a sub, if only because I think this would lead to less of a mess with the current subcategories, which mostly contain works, but not exclusively. - 02:26, May 12, 2017 (UTC) Good point. In which case "literary terminology" would be my second choice. --Alan del Beccio (talk) 02:43, May 12, 2017 (UTC) :I'm not a fan of using "terminology", but I have no better suggestion for a category containing dust jacket and subplot. - 10:32, May 12, 2017 (UTC) ::Oppose putting the elements in a category. These "literally elements" are too varied in nature, and "grab bag of things that aren't stories" isn't a good unified characteristic to base a category on. If they really need to be separated out, then I think it might be better to create a subcategory for works, and leave the rest in the old category - that way it would resemble other relative high level categories which contain some one-offs, sui generis stuff, and other oddballs, but are mainly gateways to a number of large and important subcategories. -- Capricorn (talk) 12:48, May 12, 2017 (UTC) I disagree. "Literary techniques", which would be better than "Literary terminology", and that as a subcategory of "Literature" is the same treatment their Wikipedia equivalents receive (short of the sub-sub-sub-categorizations they use). Either way, titles and techniques do not need to be all lumped together like this. --Alan del Beccio (talk) 12:55, May 12, 2017 (UTC) ::There's a lot of things that absolutely qualify as literary techniques, but then there's also a bunch of other things for which that term, at least as it's commonly understood, would really be a stretch. Slogan, plagiarism, Journalism,... ::And by the way, going further, I'm confused why something like dust jacket is considered for this category (as Archduk3 suggested). Surely in the works and elements scheme things like that would be leftovers remaining in the parent category? -- Capricorn (talk) 13:19, May 12, 2017 (UTC) The more I look at this category, the more of a mess I see it really is. Taking a step back and regrouping, I can see: The "derivatives" (the components of literature, your literary devices and whatnot), the "styles" (how the literature is expressed) the "works" themselves (examples of, your titles), and the "writers" (the ones making the works). I can't entirely say that is how we've actually applied our categorization system on this topic, also I think Category:Drama was poorly thought out and should be Mulliganed. --Alan del Beccio (talk) 14:32, May 12, 2017 (UTC) :::Having created many of these elements' pages, perhaps "Category:Literary devices" might be best? --LauraCC (talk) 17:07, May 12, 2017 (UTC) :Drama is dead, long live drama. :Dust jacket is the most "how is this literature?" entry in the category, when it's more of a tool for books than anything else. I used it as an example of something that should be removed from the category, either by placing it in a sub or just plain removal, and I didn't see how that was being addressed by any of the options, so I slipped it in and waited to see if anyone noticed it. It wasn't suppose to be taken seriously. - 12:01, May 13, 2017 (UTC) :I've weeded out some of the pages I thought don't fit the "is (a piece of) Literature" category rational, and placed a table at the top of this section to help keep track of the rest. If we're going with the standard " is " structure, the first column meets the " is (a) literary device" bit, but the second column is " is related to " stuff, which works well enough when it's a couple of pages, or the Authors sub, but since there are no other categories for these pages, I think something better than just leaving them in arguably the "wrong" category should be found. - 21:06, May 13, 2017 (UTC) Communication In reviewing how things are organized with Category:Literature, then looking at the larger picture, "Literature" (if not "Category:Arts as a whole) should be under the non-existent category "Communication" umbrella of Category:Culture, as Category:Linguistics, Category:Languages, Category:Alerts, Category:Communications technology (which would need to be reorganized, as a result) are all forms of or related to "Communication", yet none coincide with each other directly. --Alan del Beccio (talk) 14:32, May 12, 2017 (UTC) Production POV categories E3 award winners and nominees Apparently Star Trek (video game) won some E3 awards (aka "Game Critics Awards") http://www.digitalextremes.com/news/2011/08/star-trek-wins-big-e3-2011, and Star Trek: Bridge Crew was nominated recently for best vr game. http://uploadvr.com/best-vr-games-awards-e3-2016/ I'm still unsure which of the two is the proper name for the award, hence my hesitation to add it to the awards page. --LauraCC (talk) 17:23, December 31, 2016 (UTC) Also, would the expo itself get its own page (like some magazines have, such as Prosthetics, which isn't an exclusively Trek publication) or a section on a general expo page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Entertainment_Expo --LauraCC (talk) 17:35, December 31, 2016 (UTC) Feel free to wait to answer my second post about a page for the expo until this discussion is moved to a category talk page (if it ever is). --LauraCC (talk) 21:38, January 24, 2017 (UTC) Puppeteers A subcat of "Category:Performers"(?) for all who operated puppets on a Star Trek production. * Alison Elbl * Bob Baker * Heide Pendergast * Dan Curry ( transporter creatures) * Don Dow (strangled Ceti Alpha worm on ) * John Fifer * Kevin D. Carlson * Alan McFarland * David Sosalla (Klingon monster dog on – official credit:"Creature Supervisor") * David Stipes * Paul Elliot * J.J. Abrams (tribble on ) * Tony Hudson (whales in IV – official credit:"Whale Operators/Puppeteers") * Mark Miller (whales in IV – official credit:"Whale Operators/Puppeteers") --LauraCC (talk) 16:57, January 12, 2017 (UTC) We have other options also: 1) include this list in a background note @ the in-universe article Puppeteer (which only has one reference - I've already added a short note saying the shows used puppeteers to operate small moving creatures) 2) create a real-world page (a la Stand-in) for this role (my preference if a category isn't made) --LauraCC (talk) 17:32, January 18, 2017 (UTC) I just wonder how the real-world article and the in-universe one would be disambiguated? "(Real world)"? "(Production)"? --LauraCC (talk) 19:00, January 18, 2017 (UTC) I previously disambiguated United States Postal Service in universe from United States Postal Service (real world) that way, but I don't particularly like that approach either. --LauraCC (talk) 19:20, January 19, 2017 (UTC) :There is actually no reason not to have both a cat unto its own and a real world article for puppeteer (I added Don Dow and David Sosalla and, where applicable, some official movie credits to your list); the latter then serves as the "portal page" for the cat, just like the stand-in example you mentioned. What I'm less sure about however, is the subbing under "performers" of the new cat (which btw I Support). I'm wondering if subbing under "Special and Visual effects staff" isn't the more applicable one, since the items these people puppeteer are in essence special effects, and it are they that are "performing", not their operators (and if memory serves that dichotomy is adhered to in motion picture credits; puppeteers, when credited, are not listed under cast); in this respect they do not differ from motion control riggers who are putting the physical studio starship models though their paces... As to the disamb, I'm in agreement that "real world" is a bit awkward looking, but for the Postal Service (as a collectible company, it precludes merging with the in-universe article as a background section, which I would otherwise have preferred), it is correct in its description and in concordance with how the production POV template is worded, so I can live with it. If a puppeteer page is created the disamb "Production" has my preference to indicate that these real world people actually worked on Star Trek live-action productions, as opposed to the Postal Service...Sennim (talk) 07:38, March 17, 2017 (UTC) Thanks for the additions. --LauraCC (talk) 20:55, April 10, 2017 (UTC) Maintenance categories Special features I'd like to propose a Category:Special features, subbed under Category:Specials and on par with Category:Documentaries for the following reasons: *An increasing number of MA Editors find it worthwhile to include separate entries for these kind of productions, which I, btw, find entirely justified (especially produced with its own production staff in the vast majority of cases, it is a bit odd that a twenty minute (commercial) special like The Star Trek Logs: An MTV Big Picture Special Edition warrants its own entry, whereas something like the in-depth In Conversation: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga or The Trek Not Taken should not under its own category.) *Inclusion of the category would differentiate between those documentaries produced as an independent, stand-alone, production {see the definition currently employed on its portal page), contrary to those especially produced for a home media format. Currently, most of them are subbed under the in my opinion incorrect cat "Documentaries" *These home media format special features increasingly receive their own individual entries on IMDB, which has become a premier source of tracking down the lesser know Star Trek documentaries. As these specials are not seldomly listed without the source publication, the misconception may arise that these are "stand-alone" productions. *It chimes perfectly with the already existing image categories Category:Memory Alpha images (documentaries) and Category:Memory Alpha images (special features). *When introduced, a nav bar akin to the ones employed for book, or home media formats series, can be employed for the individual special feature articles, employing their respective home media format page as the "portal". *Being a MA editor myself, I find it increasingly difficult to keep track of remembering where I saw/heard what on which special, especially with the proliferation of such productions resulting from the remastered releases...Having something like the proposed category, might at the very least alleviate some of that stress... My two cents..--Sennim (talk) 15:53, March 7, 2017 (UTC) :You've certainly given this a lot of thought...:)--LauraCC (talk) 16:13, March 8, 2017 (UTC) ::Support, provided that this category is in Documentaries, as these special features are still a documentary, of a different sort when compared to the stand alone versions, but still falling under the broader definition that readers are likely to use, unless I've missed one that couldn't be considered a documentary in any respect. - 03:23, March 9, 2017 (UTC) :Question: would titled gag reels fall under this proposed category? I don't think those are documentaries per se. --LauraCC (talk) 15:24, March 9, 2017 (UTC) I'm impartial to the new cat being either listed alongside or subbed under "Documentaries", both options work for me...As to the gag reels, you could also consider them this way, as a special kind of behind-the-scenes registration...--Sennim (talk) 10:18, March 10, 2017 (UTC)